Lighter arguments against the creation and infusion of the soul are dissolved
Article IX. Lighter arguments against the creation and infusion of the soul are dissolved.
1. Objection: God finished creation in six days and rested (Gen 2; Exod 20), so new souls are not now created. Answer: after the sixth day he ceased creating new species, not new individuals. Souls he now creates differ from Adam's first-created soul in number, not in species.
2. Genesis 5: Adam begot a son in his image; a son is the father's image according to the soul; so Adam begot according to the soul. Answer: the likeness is chiefly of the whole person consisting of soul and body, not of the soul alone. Adam begot not only a like son but the very person composed of soul and body in which that likeness chiefly consists (Esthius).
3. Genesis 46: seventy souls went out from Jacob's thigh — supposedly translation by seed. Answer: souls stand synecdochically for humans. Or: souls went out from Jacob's thigh not as to simple being but as to existence in the body and union with it; the seed's virtue effected that union.
4. If generating does not produce a rational soul, humans are worse off than brutes and plants that produce their own vegetative and sensitive souls. Esthius: humans are better off even in generating, because generative power reaches the union of the noblest form with matter. It is dignity to have a soul so excellent that no natural power can produce it — which is why even angels have no generative power.
5. If the father generates only the body, he does not generate the whole human but the less noble part. Deny the sequel. Mary did not beget Christ's deity yet truly begot the whole Christ; fire from wood generates fire's form, not its matter, yet generates that whole fire (Aristotle: generation is change of the whole). Distinguish the whole human from the whole of the human: the father generates the whole human — all the parts.
6. If God creates each soul of whoever is begotten, he cooperates with fornicators and adulterers. Answer: God cooperates with natural generation, good of itself and nature's work — not with the vice by which they complete generation against his law.
Latin
ART. IX. Diluuntur leviora argumenta quae afferri solent contra creationem & infusionem animae. 1. Objicitur primo: DEUS sex primis diebus totum creationis opus absolvit, postea vero requievit ab opere suo, Gen. 2, Exod. 20; non igitur novae animae nunc creantur. Respond. DEUM post sextum diem cessasse a creatione novarum specierum, non vero novorum individuorum: animae autem, quas jam creat, non specie sed numero differunt ab anima Adami, quam primo creavit. 2. Secundo obj.: Genes. 5 dicitur Adam genuisse filium ad imaginem suam; est autem filius imago & similitudo patris secundum animam: Ergo Adam genuit filium secundum animam. Resp. filium esse imaginem & similitudinem patris non tam ratione animae quam ratione totius suppositi, i.e. quatenus est quid constans ex anima & corpore: Adam ergo non solum genuit filium similem patri, ut vult Esthius, sed etiam genuit id in quo illa similitudo potissimum consistit, videlicet ipsam personam filii sui, ex anima & corpore conflatam. 3. Tertio obj.: Genes. 46 dicuntur 70 animae egressae de femore Iacobi, quod non est aliud quam feminis propagatione traduci. Respond. animas synecdochice pro hominibus esse positas: addere etiam possumus, ipsas animas egressas fuisse ex femore Iacobi, non quod e femore Iacobi traductae sint quoad earum esse simpliciter, sed quod ex eo descenderint quoad earum existentiam in corpore & unionem cum corpore; virtus enim seminis egressi ex femore Iacobi effecit unionem corporis & animae. 4. Quarto obj.: si homo generando non producit animam rationalem, pejoris est conditionis quam bruta & plantae, quae producunt animas sibi proprias, videlicet vegetativam & sensitivam. Respondet Esthius, hominem esse melioris conditionis etiam in officio generandi quam sunt bruta aut plantae, eo quod vis ejus generativa pertingat ad unionem nobilissimae formae cum materia, ut supra declaratum est. Adde quod hoc ipsum ad magnam dignitatem pertinet, talem habere animam, ad quam producendam, propter ipsius excellentiam, nulla vis naturae possit pertingere; qua ratione nec angelis, quorum natura excellentior est quam hominum, vis ulla generandi competit. 5. Quinto obj.: si homo non generat animam filii sed corpus, non generat totum hominem, sed alteram ejus partem, imo ignobiliorem ejus partem. Resp. negando sequelam: Maria enim non genuit Deitatem CHRISTI, & tamen vere dicitur genuisse totum CHRISTUM: ignis etiam, cum ex ligno generat alium ignem, non generat materiam illius ignis, sed tantum formam, & tamen dicitur generare seu producere totum illum ignem; secundum definitionem Aristotelis, generatio est mutatio totius, &c. Quare hic distinguendum est inter totum hominem & totum hominis; pater enim generat totum hominem, id est, omnes partes. 6. Sexto obj.: si DEUS sigillatim creat animas omnium qui quomodocunque gignuntur, cooperatur scortatoribus & adulteris: nam fornicariis & adulterinis conceptibus animas creat & largitur, quod videtur absurdum. Resp. DEUS cooperatur generationi naturali, quae est per se bona & opus naturae; non autem vitio quo fornicatores & adulteri contra legem DEI generationem perficiunt.
About this text
Robert Baron, Philosophia Theologiae Ancillans (Philosophy in Service to Theology): the first exercise, on being and essence, and the second, on the origin of the soul and the spread of sin — newly rendered from Latin. Later exercises are not in this volume.
English follows locked 1658 Oxford Latin. Prima Art. I-XII from IA PDF leaves ~15-53. Secunda Art. I-XV from PDF leaves 56-107 / printed pp.54-105 (tess+pdftotext+DjVu). No modern English copied. Exercitatio Tertia+ remain.
Catalogue & scope
Wing B887. IA bim_early-english-books-1641-1700_philosophia-theologi-an_baron-robert_1658. Exercitatio Prima Art. I-XII; Exercitatio Secunda Art. I-XV (De origine animae & propagatione peccati). Not whole Philosophia (213 pp). Exercitatio Tertia+ remain.
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